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Respecting the Customer’s Choice Drives Sales

Susan Bratton, co-founder of Personal Life Media, published an article praising merchants who honor mail preference requests from Catalog Choice.  Her article is titled - Big Gold Star for Crate & Barrel’s Direct Marketing Guru Today, CatalogChoice.org’s Opt Out Program WORKS.

From the sounds of it, Susan is going to head down to the nearest Crate & Barrel store to buy something just because Crate & Barrel followed up on her opt-out request entered at Catalog Choice with an email acknowledging that they will be honoring her request.

Susan’s post is a great case study for why we built the service and the enhanced customer loyalty that we hoped would result from companies honoring consumers choices to reduce the amount of mail they receive at home.

With the holiday shopping right around the corner, I wonder how many people will start your holiday shopping by looking at our Bravo Merchants page.

By the way, we will be making it easier to find the merchants you are looking for by adding the ability to search through Bravo Merchants by product category.  Look for this enhancement in a couple of weeks.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 19th, 2008 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Customers, Featured, Merchants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “Respecting the Customer’s Choice Drives Sales”

  1. Good article. It’s nice to go into my lists of opt out requests 500+ and see all those little green boxes (115) that are participating and see only (26) little red boxes. Almost a year ago I was calling catalog companies and being driven up the wall. Now, I have more time for other mis/ adventures - chasing toddlers!

    Yvonne Camesi on September 22nd, 2008 at 11:44 am

  2. This is really working!! Our mailbox was previously stuffed full every day (and it is a good sized mailbox!). When we ask neighbors to bring in our mail while we travel, we’ve had to give them a huge Bean bag or two to hold it all and it was a heavy armful every day. Now our neighbors like us again and our
    postman is actually friendly!
    Thank you

    Rory Heydon on September 24th, 2008 at 8:23 am

  3. I opted out last January, but it seems the nearer it get to Christmas, the catalogs are coming back with a vengance! It had gotten downright embarrassing during November and December with 1s0 to 20 catalogs coming each day! My husband asked, “Do you order from all these catalogs? No wonder you never have any money!;>)”

    Mary D on October 7th, 2008 at 8:32 am

  4. I have several companies on my Choices list that are refusing to cooperate with my choice as a consumer, and now one of them (J.Jill) seems to be blaming Catalog Choice and ME, the consumer, for the catalogs I receive. I have been on the Direct Marketing Preference Mail Preference Service list for over two years now, which should be eliminating me from catalog/junk mailing lists. Rather, they still keep coming. Companies that don’t respect consumers should not be patronized. Here is what J.Jill had to say to me when I emailed them to stop sending me their catalogs, since they declined to participate in Catalog Choice: From:
    “JJill Customer Service”

    Thank you for contacting J. Jill.

    We received your inquiry regarding the removal of your name from our catalog mailing list. At J. Jill, we are committed to protecting both your privacy and the environment. There are many companies, such as Catalog Choice, who are telling consumers that they will help them reduce their unwanted mail. However, at this time, we do not have adequate assurance that these companies are properly verifying the names and addresses in their databases. We also do not know enough about these companies’ security systems or their intentions for the consumer information that they gather to refer our customers to these services. For these reasons, J. Jill has decided not to participate in these programs.

    J. Jill is already a member of the Direct Marketing Association, which offers a free Mail Preference Service that is supported by the U.S. Postal Service. If you would like to use a service to reduce your unwanted mail, we would encourage you to sign up through the Direct Marketing Association’s website at DMAChoice.org. Also, J. Jill already has a process in place to take you off of our mailing list.
    In order to process your request to be removed from our catalog mailing list, please provide us with your customer ID number or full name and billing address including zip code.

    Please contact us with the requested information via email at customerservice@jjill.com or call us at 1-800-343-5700, Monday through Saturday, 7:00 am to 11:00 pm EST.

    Sincerely,

    Cecile
    J.Jill Customer Service
    http://www.jjill.com

    Salena S on October 9th, 2008 at 12:52 pm

  5. Salena, Never joined DMA, because they are part of the problem (fox in henhouse)- they sell your names to irresponsible sources and make money then dump in consumer laps to deal with the problem to get off mailing lists. My research of DMA gave me the impression that they don’t care about the consumer-only making a buck and leaving the consumer up in arms.
    With CC.org and a bit of bullying from me by going State Attorney General for some persistent buggers, I have greatly lessened my tower of catalogs. (Did the phone calls, letter writing and SAG for a year) Now, I just decided to “let it ride”. Four catalogs so far this month and two are those that I welcome. I save the catalogs I receive every month and toss them on the last day.
    CC.org, hopefully Santa husband will leave a better, green computer system under our Christma tree, but our “footprint” is getting smaller in other ways. Next year is wind generator!

    Yvonne Camesi on October 9th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
 

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